What's Up DOCumentation
Robelle Consulting Ltd.
Unit 201, 15399-102A Avenue
Surrey, B.C. Canada V3R 7K1
Phone: (604) 582-1700
Fax: (604) 582-1799
Date: October 1, 1990
From: Robert M. Green, President
David J. Greer, Research & Development
Michael Shumko, Customer Support
To: Users of Robelle Software
Re: News of the HP 3000, 1990 #5
What You Will Find in This News Memo:
News Tidbits
About Robelle
Here They Are: The Robelle Dealers!
Technical Tips
Thanks for Qedit Survey Responses
System Debugger Tips
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions
News Tidbits
Control-Y Does It Again. Over the years, the MPE feature with the most
recurring problems has to be Control-Y. Here is a new problem reported by
Norm Bouffard at BC Tel that we have encountered ourselves. You start on an
MPE V system, then Run Qedit or Editor or any other program that allows MPE
commands. From within this program, you do a REMOTE HELLO to your MPE XL
system and run another program. In that program, you try to stop a listing
with the Control-Y key.
What happens is very frustrating. Your listing stops, but you don't get any
prompt. You press Return and all you get is a blank line! The way out is to
press Break, which will put you into break on your original MPE V machine.
You then type RESUME and REMOTE to get back to break on the MPE XL machine,
then type RESUME once more. A very roundabout way to do Control-Y.
This problem happens only if you start on MPE V, and only if you also start
the remote session from within a program, rather than from the MPE prompt.
So that is a workaround of sorts. According to the Response Center, this bug
is fixed in V-Delta-5, release G.03.C5, or you can get a patch from HP. The
SR# is 5000-437764.
Octcomp on MPE XL 2.1. HowMessy and Prose do not execute properly if
OCTCOMPed on MPE XL 2.1. It seems that OCTCOMP version 5.77 does not always
convert the programs correctly.
TurboIMAGE Users Explode. At the Boston Interex meeting, HP heard a mouthful
from users of TurboIMAGE who were upset about the unbundling of their
favorite database. In case you haven't heard, what HP did is make TurboIMAGE
a separately-priced item that you can delete from your HP 3000 commerical
system. This means that when writing that little utility or product for the
HP 3000, you can no longer count on the fact that you will have TurboIMAGE
available. Angry words flashed across the room at SIG meetings and the
Management Roundtable: "loyalty", "betrayal", "What next, unbundle KSAM and
VPLUS?", "trust", "worst marketing decision since new Coke"!
To lighten the atmosphere, Sasha Volokh of Vesoft penned an eight-stanza poem
memorializing the stormy SIG IMAGE meeting on Monday night. Here's a
sampling, to the rhythm of "The Man From Snowy River":
...
And Wirt Atmar had a letter to the people who're in charge
Of the Marketing of those HP machines;
The unbundling, he said, was a mistake, and it was large
Since about the user, HP don't care beans.
It used to be that users, they came first in HP's thought,
And the vendors, they were happy campers too.
To make pricing-based decisions -- that is not what HP ought!
Engineering plans are what HP should do.
Of the people at the meeting, many men agreed with Wirt
That from under them was being pulled the RUG.
People asked: Why is HP treating us vendors just like dirt?
If we've no time to adjust, our grave is dug!
And another thing was talked about by Larry Simonsen:
Now we're forced to buy HPs with SQL.
Then Steve Cooper was elected as the chairman once again.
I hope this whole affair will turn out well.
Goodbye to the Farm. Robelle Consulting has a new address, and, of course,
along with that we have new phone and fax numbers:
Robelle Consulting Ltd.
Unit 201, 15399-102A Avenue
Surrey, B.C. Canada V3R 7K1
Phone: (604) 582-1700
Fax: (604) 582-1799
We finally outgrew the Robelle farmhouse, so we bit the bullet and moved into
a real office, complete with false ceiling, computer room, conference room,
lounge, and kitchen. (Marie's desk is no longer six inches from the stove!)
Sales, administration, and customer support are based in the new office.
Management and R & D are still done from home -- even with with the new
office, we are still very much a real 90's distributed operation.
About Robelle
Bob Green on the Road. Bob will be busy speaking this fall: October 1st at
HP's "Best of Interex" Conference for their internal MIS people in
California, October 12th in New Orleans, October 17th in Indianapolis, and
October 19th as the keynote speaker for the MARUG bash (oops, "meeting") in
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Sale of Dbaudit Product. We have found a new home for Dbaudit in a software
firm that is known to the users and has a strong technical support group.
Dbaudit needed a stronger marketing effort to reach more HP 3000 sites.
Education is required to show people the value of transaction logging and the
activity reports which Dbaudit generates from it. Unfortunately, our firm's
small size does not allow us to devote the energy to Dbaudit that it
deserves. This transfer will allow us to concentrate our resources fully on
our other products.
We have concluded an agreement with Bradmark Computer Systems for them to
take over Dbaudit, including new sales, support for existing users, and new
right-to-copy licenses for current sites. Bradmark is well known for their
DBGENERAL and SUPERDEX products, as well as for 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week
technical support. You should update your vendor records to show their
address and telephone numbers:
Bradmark Computer Systems Inc.
Attention: Liz Stanley, Admin. Mgr.
4265 San Felipe, Suite 820
Houston, TX 77027
Telephone: (713) 621-2808 (or 1-800-275-2723)
Fax: (713) 621-1639
We would like to introduce you to Mark Guthrie, who is Bradmark's marketing
manager for Dbaudit, and Larry Boyd, who is Bradmark's R&D manager for
Dbaudit. Mark Guthrie was a long-time user of Dbaudit before he came to
Bradmark, and he was the one who thought up the idea of linking DBGENERAL and
Dbaudit. For any questions regarding product or pricing policy, call Mark at
(408) 879-1630. Some of you may remember Larry Boyd from his many years as
an HP 3000 user in Dallas. Even before we had officially signed the
contract, Larry was in Vancouver to study the source code under our
instruction. He has already converted Dbaudit to be compatible with
DBGENERAL, resolved two outstanding problems, and done several enhancements
to the product (including a NOUPDATE option for the CHECKPOINT feature).
Robelle has just completed distribution of a new release of Dbaudit, version
2.0.1, which will be the last version you receive from us. The transfer of
Dbaudit occurred on August 2, 1990, including sales, technical support, and
development. Of course, we are working closely with Bradmark to ensure a
smooth transition. Please call Bradmark for Dbaudit technical support at
(213) 432-7713, but be assured that we are providing backup support should
that be necessary. We are giving the Bradmark staff product training on
Dbaudit, as well as in-depth technical training for the specialists who will
be supporting and enhancing Dbaudit.
P.S. If Dbaudit is your only Robelle product, you may be wondering about the
"What's Up Doc?" newsletter. We are keeping you on the mailing list despite
the transfer of Dbaudit. Since we are not transferring HowMessy and Select
to Bradmark, you should call us if you depend on these tools and we will
arrange continuing updates.
Here They Are: The Robelle Dealers!
Robelle is extremely lucky in the dealers that it has representing it around
the world. They have proved to be a knowledgeable, conscientious, and
friendly group. If you need any of our software outside North America, or
just need a trustworthy place to call about HP 3000 problems, try this list:
United Kingdom Austria, Switzerland
Clive Oldfield SWS SoftWare Systems AG
91 Cumberland Road Attention: Kurt Sager
London E13 8LH Postfach
England CH-3172 Niederwangen
Phone: +44 71 473 2558 Switzerland
or +44 71 262 5050 ext 201 (LBS) Phone: +41 31 34 06 66
Fax: +44 71 473 2558 Fax: +41 31 34 32 63
Australia, New Zealand Mexico
Michael Redmond Lagerholm Software S.A. de C.V.
CO-CAM PTY Ltd. Attention: Svante Lagerholm
18 Trenerry Crescent Carlos Arellano 3er piso
Abbotsford Circuito Centro Comercial
Victoria 3067 Cd. Satelite, Naucalpan de Juarez
Australia Edo. de Mexico, C.P. 53100
Phone: +61 3 412 3456 Mexico
Fax: +61 3 417 7857 Phone: +52 5 572 2524
Telex: 39178 COCAM
Scandinavia South Africa
Ole Nord AB Robert Gibson
Management Systems Consultant Synergy Computing (Pty.) Ltd.
Strandvagen 39 Norwich Life Center
191 45 Sollentuna Protea Road
Sweden Claremont 7700 South Africa
Phone: +46 8 623 00 50 Phone: +27 21 61 9001
Fax: +46 8 35 42 45 Fax: +27 21 61 1304
Telex: 16830 SOS S Telex: 5727566 CTCOC SA
Holland Germany
SAMCO Automation b.v. Kurt Sager
Attention: Marius Schild SWS SoftWare Systems GmbH
Sprendlingenstraat 4 Postfach 1710
5061 KN Oisterwijk D-7858 Weil am Rhein
Holland Germany
Phone: +31 4242 15655 Phone: 07621 791101
Fax: +31 4242 88815 Telex, Fax: see Switzerland
France
ARES
3, Avenue du Norvege
ZAC de Courtaboeuf
91946 Les Ulis Cedex France
Phone: +33 1 69 28 22 73 x 175
Fax: +33 1 69 28 19 18
Technical Tips
MPE XL Variables. You can include variable names in the text of a TELL
command, and MPE XL will replace them with the actual values. E.g.,
:TELLOP At !hptimef !hpjobname JOB FAILED with CIERROR !cierror
MPE XL Is Magic. Type :HELP SUMMARY on MPE XL 2.05. It tells you that if
you type HELP CM, you will get a list of commands that have been enchanted
for MPE XL. Aha! I knew there was magic involved!
Native-Mode KSAM Warning. Do not :RELEASE a native mode KSAM file. It
causes the EOF to be set to zero. This is supposed to be fixed in an MPE XL
patch called CXS4. HP SR #5000-567305.
Checking for MPE XL in Version 2.1. We used to check whether a job stream or
command file was running on MPE XL by doing a :Showcache Command and looking
for a specific Cierr number. Ooops! MPE XL 2.1 returns a different error
number for :Showcache. Here is the new way that we detect MPE XL, using a
command that we hope is less likely to change:
!setjcw false = 0
!setjcw true = 1
!setjcw cierror=0
!comment Determine whether we are on MPE XL.
!continue
!setvar robelletempflag "MPE XL " + "only"
!if cierror=0 then
! continue
! deletevar robelletempflag
! setjcw mpexlflag = true
!else
! setjcw mpexlflag = false
!endif
!if mpexlflag = true
! octcomp qedit,qeditoct
!endif
Thanks for Qedit Survey Responses
A hearty "thank you" to all the users who returned our Qedit Enhancement
Survey. I especially liked the reply from Has-Ole Kaae at Greenlandair who
sent two copies of his votes, explaining "one for each HP 3000 !? ok?". Here
are the survey totals to date:
Undo changes 607
Split screen 534
PC Editor usable w/without HP 3000 457
PC Frontend linked to Qedit 396
Editing of Cobol compile errors 391
Editing of Cobol Copylib members 385
Native-Mode version of Qedit 382
Spelling checker 353
Four-up listings 326
Set Lang Quiz 269
Fast NM Compiler Interface 263
Variables on MPE V 215
HPPATH variable on MPE V 199
You will be happy to hear that several of your favorites are already done and
are included in Qedit version 3.9 to be released before Christmas:
Trap Cobol compile errors and point direct to source line
Text, List and Keep Copylib members
NM Compiler Interface for seamless compiling
Since Undo was far and away the favorite enhancement idea, we have started
work on it immediately for version 4.0 of Qedit. If you have ever used
another editor whose Undo logic you thought was outstanding, please send us
the documentation so we can study it. We are planning a Native-Mode
conversion of QEDIT this winter as well.
Some of the hand-written requests that we received are already available in
Qedit 3.8, which you should have. For example, Stuart Scaiffe asked for "a
string search option which places the cursor at the start of the string
found". If he is using Visual, Set Vis Home Off will give him just what he
wants already. For Line-Mode, we will have to consider an enhancement.
System Debugger Tips
The MPE XL System Debugger is a great advance over MPE V and the Symbolic
Debugger (XDB) is said to be even better. Here is a tip for using the System
Debugger, from David Greer, our head of R & D:
Setting a "Return" Breakpoint.
One of the most useful breakpoints is the one immediately after a procedure
call. Suppose, for example, that your program calls the procedure
extract_ready. You want to know the result of extract_ready, so you would
like a breakpoint in the calling code immediately after the call to
extract_ready. You do this when you first enter extract_ready. Note that
the following will not work anywhere else:
nmdebug >b extract_ready
nmdebug >c
.
.
.
nmdebug >b sr4.r2,-1 {sr4 = space register 4}
nmdebug >c {continue execution}
By convention, the return address is always relative to Space Register Four.
Thus the full return address is "sr4.r2". The ",-1" tells Debug/XL to
execute the breakpoint once and then throw it away.
Unfortunately, this scheme doesn't work as well for system intrinsics, since
the return address is a switch stub and not your actual code. However, we
have used this trick to breakpoint an exit from the HPFOPEN intrinsic. When
you exit HPFOPEN and pop up within the switch stub, you are not yet back in
the calling program. But, since HPFOPEN has completed, you can look at the
returned file number and status parameters to see what the results were.
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions
Qedit Version 3.8.1/3.8.2
Setting Qedit run parm for MPEX %QEDIT Command. The %QEDIT command in MPEX
invokes Qedit without specifying a run-time parm. This means that Qedit will
not execute commands in account and local QEDITMGR files. If you want Qedit
to execute commands in account and local QEDITMGR files, you can specify a
run-time parm for Qedit by setting the variable MPEXQEDITFILE in MPEX before
entering the %QEDIT command:
%Setvar MpexQeditFile "QEDIT.PUB.ROBELLE;PARM=3"
This command can be added to the MPEXMGR file in PUB.VESOFT to set this as a
default for your site.
Variable Substitution. We get a number of calls from Qedit customers who
want to get the value of a JCW or MPE XL variable into a file. This can be
done easily by adding a dummy value to the file and changing this to the
value of a variable/JCW in a command file. Here's an example.
/Add
1 Today's Date is: $TODAY
2 //
/:Purge Today,Temp
FILE ! NOT FOUND, NO PURGE DONE. (CIWARN 383)
/:Beginfile Today
/:/Change "$TODAY"!HPDATEF"
/:Endfile
/Today
1 Today's Date is: TUE, AUG 7, 1990
1 line changed
Interrupting NM Compiles. Thom Nelson discovered a problem with our PASXL
udc (in udcxl.catalog.robelle). If you do a break/abort of one of our NM
compiler udcs, it leaves a temporary message file which will cause problems
if you try to re-Open your file in the same session. The workaround is to
purge the temporary message file after you abort the compile. This will be
fixed in Qedit 3.9, due to be released at the end of the year.
Xpress Version 2.6
Xpress User Numbers. When managing the Xpress user base, it is sometimes
difficult to decide how to assign user numbers to the various users and
groups. Here are a few real-life hints from our users.
A user passed on a tip about how he assigns Xpress user numbers. He gives
every user the same four-digit number as their telephone extension. That way
it's really easy to remember a person's user number, as long as you know his
phone number. And vice versa. The down side of this tip is that there is no
logical grouping of numbers. Also, Xpress lists the users in numeric order,
not alphabetic order, possibly making it difficult to locate a user by name.
Other Xpress shops assign the user numbers in ranges, with all the users of a
group being in the same range of numbers. E.g., the 400's are MIS, the 500's
are ACCOUNTING, etc. A typical example would be 400 = MIS group, 401/499 =
users of the MIS group.
One Xpress shop assigns the numbers so that the user list shows up in
alphabetic order. They have to leave big gaps in the numbers to be able to
add new users in the correct alphabetic order without reassigning existing
user numbers. In this scheme, the number itself has no intrinsic meaning.
Saving fkeys on MPE XL. One of our users told us that Xpress was taking a
whole minute to save his function keys when he started up Xpress. This
operation usually doesn't take more than a second or two. The user finally
figured out the problem: when he had both MPE XL type-ahead and Reflection
type-ahead enabled at the same time, the fkeys could not be saved. The
solution was to disable one of the type-aheads. We recommend disabling MPE
XL type-ahead if you have Reflection type-ahead.
Suprtool Version 3.2
MPE XL 2.1 Patch. There seems to be a problem with the MPE XL trap handler,
such that if Suprtool aborts it may invoke a System Abort #613. One known
way for Suprtool to abort is to try to Use a file which is wider than 120
characters. The problem with Use files is fixed with the following patch to
Suprtool.
:hello mgr.robelle,pub
:run patch.pub.sys
File? Suprtool
?M,16,3651
035051,035201
?E
Native-Mode KSAM. One of the most popular questions of the last few months
has been, "What about native-mode KSAM?" Good question.
Testing with the production version of MPE XL 2.1 has shown that Suprtool
does not work with NM KSAM. No error is reported, but when reading from an
input NM KSAM file, Suprtool will only read some of the records. We do not
know when Suprtool will be compatible with NM KSAM, although we are hoping
for the last quarter of 1990. Even if we get Suprtool working with NM KSAM,
our experience suggests that you should probably wait a year before trying NM
KSAM.
*c1950a615b5g2P*p-50Y
Fortune Cookie of the Month
The Stress Diet:
Breakfast: Half Grapefruit, 4 oz skim milk, 1 unbuttered toast,
black coffee
Lunch: 6 oz boiled cabbage, 1 boiled egg, 2 slices melba
toast, 12 grapes, 1 Oreo cookie
Afternoon Coffee Break:The rest of the bag of Oreos
Dinner: 2 loaves of garlic bread, double helping of lasagna,
1/2 bottle of wine, 2 pieces of pecan pie
Midnite Snack: 1 entire Sara Lee double frosted cake